Welcome to the Sunday outing for The Voice’s near-daily Daily View series. As it’s a Sunday, today it comes with a special bonus military film.

2 Big Stories

Spotlight turns to MPs’ outside earnings

The Telegraph, in a surprise departure, runs a big story on MPs and money:

A survey has uncovered the outside interests of dozens of MPs who hold down paid positions, ranging from legal and media work to crofting, and even grave digging. One earns £750 an hour for helping to organise an awards ceremony for the drinks industry, while another is paid more than £1,300 a day to provide business advice.

Among the highest earners is Nick Raynsford, the former housing minister, who collected £148,000 from six private-sector jobs last year, mostly connected to housing, and John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat MP, who receives more than £200,000 a year from his computer software company.

John Hemming pre-empted the story about himself by a week with a detailed post on his blog:

I am a full time politician, but I remain a director of two companies that I founded and also other businesses that run through as John Hemming Trading. My working week is around 70 hours a week. I spend about 4 hours a month chairing John Hemming & Co LLP. This means that over 98% of my time is spent on political issues.

Iraq prepares for US troops to leave its cities

From the BBC:

The Iraqi authorities are tightening security in preparation for next Tuesday’s deadline for US soldiers to pull out of the country’s cities.

All police leave has been cancelled and extra troops have been drafted in, amid a spate of bomb attacks this week which has left 250 people dead.

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki says the attacks may be aimed at stirring up sectarian tensions.

2 Must-Read Blog Posts

Cllr Neil Williams reminisces about the fall of the Iron Curtain
Jonathan Calder returns to the Duckworth Lewis Method album

Sunday Bonus